Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Political Hypocrisy

I met a Malaysian who has been living in Taipei for the past 20 plus years. He came back to Penang recently for a short visit.

In 2004, he was tempted back to Malaysia by the government's brain gain promises. He is an engineering consultant. His 3 years stay in Penang ended up with nothing. In 2006, he packed and left Penang for good.

He told me that Taiwan is set to become the next high growth state in the new decade. Taiwan's lacklustre past decade was due to its politics. A number of my Taiwanese friends lamented to the same fact that ex-premier Chen Sui Bian was more interested in playing up political rhetoric than mending the economy and find a new area of growth for the city state. Chen's tenure is now known as the lost decade.

Malaysia may end up with the same fate if politicians continue to play up unhealthy political rhetoric, stoking racial and religious sentiments and use the monarchy for their political mileage. Our politicians should respect the spirit of the federal constitution and not meddling with the monarchy and accuse one another with 'treason'.

Adding the monarchy element into the already messy political situation muddled by race and religion will turn our politics into a dangerous cocktail.

It is sad to note that Malaysia is slipping down a slop of regression. We are no longer a top destination for FDIs. I wonder how top brains can be attracted to come to Malaysia if politicians behave like feudal lords.

We continue to quarrel over Islamic state, history textbooks, a simple handshake of a Muslim woman, personalities etc.

Politicians in Malaysia are probably the biggest hypocrites. Imagine a leader who was caught in a private sex video questioning a married Muslim woman on her choice not to have any skin contact with other men. Imagine a former activist dumping his party and his principles to join another race based party just because he was unhappy with its leadership. Malaysian politics is too personality centric but lacked principle and sincerity.

I am afraid that our politics is going to fail us. Bad politics, poor public institutions, corruption, poor governance and policy direction are among the ingredients of a failed state.

Until and unless the voters can think straight and focus on quality of governance, this country may not turn its declining fortune around.

Sadly, more talents and frustrated people are going to leave the country before the Talent Corp can even start its full operations.

7 comments:

najib manaukau
said...

Can a leopard ever change it's spots ?When the calls for the immigrated professionals failed they now are calling it with a new name but it will still surely fail. Don't insult their intelligent with added offers of incentives and instead the government should concentrate on the NEP students after their overseas' holidays.There are millions of them, or just get the varsities in Malaysia to offer them with glorified titles for the many vacancies in the civil services. Why bother to offer added incentives and added incentives years after years ? Don't forget you were responsible when you call them to go back to China in the first place. Once bitten twice shy.No body can stop you from calling them to return, In fact you are doing this already and is this why you have so many quarter cooked 'Professionals' in Malaysia ? Can you change the cows' horns into an ivory ? Only Umno and especially shenanigan Mahathir have the illusions that they can. It is just an illusion.No matter how many NEP and NDP they can come up with and regardless of what and how many polishes they give to the cows' horns they will always remain as cows' horns. Their rightful and eventual place is the burial grounds !

The lost decade, i would say sabotage played a big role. Many laws were blocked by kuomintang, especially those dealing with corruption and reform (kuomintang still have the majority then). Externally, there's sabotage by china.

Corruption is in kuomintang's bloodstream, just like bn. The difference is they get things done and continue building. Ours is a complete parasite.

So it is all the most we must seek for a change in a new govt.As the saying goes"no venture,no gain"!Let the new govt(by PKR)rule and see what will happen.Afterall,we have had the taste of BN for 53 long years and you already know their sytle and so why go for it again?Change We Must!!!

dont you think our nation is already a failed state- a nation in despair n no hope under the current administration, The word is to change n change we must quickly. we have now clowns , robbers n immoral leaders running this nation- no wonder malaysia is in a big mess n declining fast to the cliff. change n change

MCA IS BANKRUPT OF TALENTS AS THEY HAVE TO ELECT A PORN ARTIST AS PRESIDENT TO REPRESENT THE PARTY HOW SHORT SIGHTED ARE THEIR DELEGATES WITH OKT'S AID WHO IS ORIGINALLY FROM TEAM A WHO JUMPED INTO THE FRAY IN THE LAST MINUTES DEPRIVED MCA OF A CLEAN AND GOOD LEADER IN ONG TEE KEAT WHO WAS FROM TEAM B. SO USE YOUR VOTES WISELY COME GE 13 TO THROW OUT THAT MCA/BN/UMNO ETC AS THEY ARE ONLY GOOD IN CORRUPTIONS AND FIND WAYS TO PROMOTE CORRUPTIONS TO ENRICH THEMSELVES, ONLY, THEY DO NOT CARE FOR THE SUFFERINGS AND DEATHS OF THE RAKYATS UNDER THE CURRENT POLICE-STATE, WHERE THERE WERE TORTURES AND DEATHS BY POLICE AND MACC MURDERERS UNDER THE POLICE AND MACC CUSTODIES. THROW THEM ALL OUT AND TAKE THOSE MURDERERS TO JUSTICE UNDER A NEW CLEAN AND UNTAINTED FEDERAL GOVERNMENT UNDER PR. VOTE WISELY IN ALL ELECTIONS BECAUSE THE FUTURE OF ALL RACES AND RELIGIONS OF MALAYSIANS BE THEY MALAY, CHINESE OR INDIAN OR OTHERS ARE AT STAKE BECAUSE THE CORRUPTED REGIME OF UMNO/BN WILL CONTINUE TO CHEAT, ROB AND PLUNDER WITH MORE SEVERE CORRUPTIONS OF THE NATION'S WEALTH IF THEY ARE TO BE RUNNING THE GOVERNMENT EVEN AFTER 53 YEARS OF CONTINEOUS ABUSE OF POWER AND SUPPRESSION OF THE RAKYATS AND HAVE THROWN THE NATION'S WEALTH AWAY LOSING VALUE OF ITS CURRENCY AGAINST SINGAPORE, BRUNEI, HONG KONG, TAIWAN, KOREA AND MOST RECENTLY CHINA, AND SOON VIETNAM AND THAILAND AND CANBODIA COULD OVERTAKE US.

Mr Khoo, need your help to very this. Just recieved this mail from friend. If this is indeed true, then God help the non-muslim/malay food industries!!!!!!!!!!

"What is becoming of Malaysia ? The nightmare is evolving and those caught in it are mainly the Chinese and Indians, and perhaps multinational corp with operations in M'sia. I feel sad to receive this email.

Its so sad and what a terrible economic and commercial tragedy that hard working, honest, dedicated entrepreneur like your goodself has to face such kind of rulings in the food business.

It must also been horrific and financially disastrous that DatoJackson 's Sliverbird factory is forced to close down under such heart breaking circumstances.

I know about the IKEA's restaurant's shut down because of the so-called question on the alleged foodstuff halal certification.

May the mercy and compassion of God Almighty be upon 1Malayasia !!God help this country !!

On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 9:56 AM, Sani Ong wrote:

Dr.Martin, The Halal Hype that is going on in our country will force many SMIs involved in food production and distribution to close shop. JAKIM has muscled its way to make itself the Monopoly of the Halal certificate. In April 2011 the Halal Act will be passed by Parliament where only Jakim has the monopoly to issue the certificate.

Each certificate cost about RM1000 and with 2000 line items in my company I will have to foot out RM2,000,000 and that is if I am lucky to get all those approved. I might as well close down my business and retrench all the 60 staff with some 100 odd dependents.

The Government will be deprived of some RM800,000 worth of taxes and duties. The Food standard will definitely decline as chefs will have less ingredients to work with. The Halal procedures will increase the food cost by 10%. JAKIM doesnot care for the economy of the country. All it cares for is its rice bowl to ensure that it is relevant and seen to be working hard.

Look at the way it closed down IKEA for two weeks. Look at the way it closed down Silverbird in Nilai. It does not care for the business environment in this country.

Even mineral water has halal logo. Eventually all vegetable, fish, grains, rice, etc will need halal logo. Eventually all Muslims will not touch all non Muslims if the Halal fever is allowed to spread. Even Saudi Arabia is not as strict as Jakim. I have suppliers who could sell their products into Saudi Arabia but not in Malaysia .

80% of the food industry is run by Non Malays. One of the criteria to obtain the Halal Certificate for restaurants is to employ Malaysian Muslim. If you do not have any Malaysian Muslim in your restaurant you will not be issued with a Halal certificate. Where are we heading???? "

Khoo Kay Peng

Khoo Kay Peng

About Me

Kay Peng is a strategy and management consultant and a political analyst. He holds a bachelor degree in Economics from the University of Malaya and a master of arts degree in International Relations from the University of Warwick. He was a Kuok Foundation and a British Chevening scholar.

For more information on what he does; please visit www.i3mgroup.com

Responses posted on this blog do not represent the views of the blogger unless stated.